Abstract

The objective of this in vitro study was to determine the effects of different barley and oat varieties on CH4 production, digestibility, and rumen fermentation patterns in dairy cows. Our hypothesis was that oat-based diets would decrease CH4 production compared with barley-based diets, and that CH4 production would differ between varieties within grain species. To evaluate this hypothesis, we conducted an in vitro experiment using a fully automated gas production technique, in which the total gas volume was automatically recorded by the system. The experiment consisted of triplicate 48-h incubations with 16 treatments, including 8 different varieties of each grain. The grain varieties were investigated as a mix with an early-cut grass silage (1:1 ratio of grain to silage on a dry matter basis) and mixed with buffered rumen fluid. We estimated predicted in vivo total gas production and CH4 production by applying a set of models to the gas production data obtained by the in vitro system. We also evaluated in vitro digestibility and fermentation characteristics. The variety of grain species did not affect total gas production, CH4 production, or fermentation patterns in vitro. However, in vitro-determined digestibility and pH were affected by variety of grain species. Grain species affected total gas and CH4 production: compared with barley-based diets, oat-based diets decreased total gas production and CH4 production by 8.2 and 8.9%, respectively, relative to dry matter intake. Grain species did not affect CH4 production relative to in vitro true dry matter digestibility. Oat-based diets decreased digestibility and total volatile fatty acid production, and maintained a higher pH at 48 h of incubation compared with barley-based diets. Grain species did riot affect fermentation patterns, except for decreased molar proportions of valerate with oat-based diets. These results suggest that replacing barley with oats in dairy cow diets could decrease enteric CH4 production.

Keywords

oats; barley; methane; in vitro

Published in

Journal of Dairy Science
2020, Volume: 103, number: 2, pages: 1404-1415
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC

SLU Authors

• Fant, Petra

  • Department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Ramin, Mohammad

  • Department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Grimberg, Åsa

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Carlsson, Anders

  • Department of Plant Breeding, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Huhtanen, Pekka

  • Department of Agricultural Research for Northern Sweden, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Animal and Dairy Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2019-16995

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/104038